It’s something I've explored within myself, and Bodyshot as a team...

Welcome to January! I hope you’ve had an amazing Christmas, and you are all good to go – you’re focused and refreshed, energised, and ready for what 2019 brings.

I want to talk to you about an interesting question, something I’ve explored with lots of clients. It’s something I’ve also explored within myself, and Bodyshot as a team…

What is your health worth?

This question comes up a lot, because we put a value against everything that we do, and some of the values that we put against health are not as important as they should be or we don’t take it as seriously as we should. It’s very easy to get caught up in the here and now, and think, “Well, I’m okay for now. I don’t need to think too much about the future. The way I’m living my life now is okay, I’m managing.” Or, maybe you’re just firefighting all the time – you haven’t got the energy to put into health.

My belief is that we’re sacrificing or selling off our future for the convenience of today, and you can apply that to anything in life, but particularly health. Is the way you’re living now selling off your future? One of our key beliefs here at Bodyshot is that health span is more important than lifespan. What I mean by that is, it’s really important to live a long, healthy, energised, and vital life and being healthy with it, as opposed to living a long life where the last 20 years you might be walking assisted with a stick, or maybe a chair, and you’re not able to feed yourself and so on.

Here are some of the big mistakes I see people making around health and undervaluing it. One, it’s not putting enough time into it. We need to dedicate time – I would say between 10-20, even 25% of your time should be spent on health. That could be many things; It could be having a coach, having a personal trainer, going for massages, doing your own fitness sessions, going to the gym, sitting in the sauna, going for treatments, perhaps meditating, doing something for you that’s really good for your mind, your body, and for your general wellbeing, and equally putting financial input into that as well (i.e. cash).

Again, I would suggest spending between 10- 25% of your monthly income on something related to health as I’ve just described above. If you think that sounds a lot, just think about what it could buy you later on in life. If it could get you another 5 years of health span, or 10 years of being mobile – what price is that? Or, another 10 years of better and improved cognitive performance, so you stave off some of the diseases like Alzheimer’s which are very prevalent at the moment.

It’s really important to focus on being invested in terms of time, invested in terms of money, invested emotionally and invested in all regards – to really focus in on health. January is a time when we tend to have a little bit more energy, and a little bit more focus, so I really urge you to think about how much time, and money, and emotional energy do you spend on your health, and what’s that getting you? Where are you at right now?

Lastly, think about what your health is worth to you? What would you do if you had all the energy in the world? That’s a great question to leave you on. As ever, if you have questions please email me at: [email protected].

If you need a bit of support and advice on where you are with your health, then why not take our Health IQ TestThe test will take you through 24 very simple questions. Yes, no, maybe answers, and at the end of the test you’ll get a free 39 page report on our six signals; sleep, mental health, energy, body composition, digestion and fitness, which will give you some indicators, and some tips for you to improve on the areas where you score lowest.

Leanne Spencer is an entrepreneur, coach, TEDx Speaker, author of Remove the Guesswork and Rise and Shine, and founder of Bodyshot Performance Limited. Bodyshot is a health and fitness consultancy that helps busy professionals get more energy by removing the guesswork around their health, fitness and nutrition. Visit www.bodyshotperformance.com to find out more, or follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

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